TGIF! Almost. Busy week. Way too busy and I really
need to catch up on my story writing this weekend, if only the cats
will quit sitting on the keyboard and in front of the monitor. My
big (15 pounds) Russian Blue/Oriental mix just loves to sit right down
in front of me and casually flop down onto the keyboard, then has the
nerve to look up at me with those emerald green eyes as if to ask
"Yeah? What's the problem?" Cats. Can't live with
'em, can't disobey their commands. Always remember....Cats were
once worshipped as gods and they never let you forget it.

I've prattled on enough. Many thanks to those who wrote.
I've enjoyed our correspondence very much and traded some very
interesting thoughts this week.

Stay safe and enjoy the story.

Kindest regards.

Michael Garrison
mng1114@yahoo.com

And now, [Sweeping gesture towards the parting curtains].......

This story is a work of
fiction.Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental. This
story also deals with love and consensual sexual activities between men.If you are not of legal age, reside in an
area where viewing such material is illegal, or are offended by such
themes, do
not read further and leave this site now.

The author retains all
rights to this story. Reproductions or
links to other sites are
not allowed without the permission of the author.

Two
Lives – Two Loves

Chapter 27

We excused ourselves for a minute. Jon and
I went down to get some fresh towels
and some shorts from the laundry. We
stripped off our drenched clothes, threw them into the to-do pile and
dried
ourselves off. The cool air evaporating
off our skin felt good so we didn’t bother with shirts as we padded
back up to
the kitchen. Hunter’d cracked us open a
couple of fresh beers and Ron’s hands were waiting for me, God bless
‘em.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhoooooooowwwwww,” I moaned. I
sat on the floor by the couch, towel draped
over my head, as Ron worked his miracle.

“Jesus; could you have
any more knots?” Ron said as he dug his thumbs slowly into the base of
my neck
and shoulders.

“It’s been one of those days, man; what can I say?” I said,
almost breathlessly.

“And that ain’t no shit!” Jon said, winking at Hunter as he
rubbed his hair with the towel. We
chuckled at our new found catchphrase.

“Colloquially expressed, but essentially correct,” I added,
doing the best Spock I could muster.

“So what happened with you?” Hunter asked hesitantly.The question was obviously burning a hole in
his head. Part of him probably said to
just leave it be, but the other part just had to know. “Man,
it was like you were out past Pluto or
something.”

“You wanna tell him or should I?” Jon asked.

Ron was playing church-mouse. Not a peep.His hands were doing a fabulous job on my neck; I’ll tell you
that. I wasn’t real keen on any
distractions from those
fingers and thumbs sliding around my shoulders and back.He had to be curious, too, though.

Finally finished futzing around with his hair, Jon draped
the towel around his shoulders and sat back in the lounge chair.

“There’s something we really didn’t exactly get to at dinner,”
Jon began. “We haven’t brought it up
much ‘cause most people either don’t know how to react to it or they
react
badly,” he said, taking another draw from his bottle.

I peeked out from under my towel to see that Jon had Hunter’s
undivided attention. Hunter was sensing
the worst.

“See,” Jon began again, “Brad’s psychic.”

A punchbowl with a big, ol’ nasty Baby Ruth floating around
in it couldn’t have made the room go any quieter. Hell,
I was half surprised the TV didn’t suddenly
mute itself. Even Ron, who knew all
this, stopped working on my back.

“Ron? My back?”

“Oh. Yeah,” he
mumbled. “Sorry.”

“No way!” Hunter said as he fell back in the sofa next to
me.

“Word,” Jon said, his head bobbing in acknowledgement.

“Oh, man!” Hunter grinned.“That is too cool! Man, the way
you started telling it, I thought you were gonna say he’s positive or
something!”

“I am positive,” I
deadpanned, and waited.

There’s never a camera around when you need it. I
wish I could properly describe the sudden
sharp looks I got from Hunter, but especially Jon.He looked like his own mother had just thrown
him out of the house. Naked.Cost for faking out boyfriend? Priceless.

I turned around to see the look on Ron’s face. I
felt his hands withdraw as soon as I’d said
it, like he’d touched a hot stove, and I could see every filling in his
gaping
mouth. I’d said it as a joke but the
reactions were pretty sad.

“I’m positive that I’m psychic,” I said.

The volume came back up.Hunter, Ron and Jon all groaned as one.I guess that Baby Ruth was mine.

“That was so not
funny, dude,” Jon said, hurling a cushion at my head.

“Sorry,” I pleaded, holding up my hands. “Sorry;
I beg forgiveness.”

“Yeah, man,” Hunter agreed, “that’s not the kind of thing
you joke about.”

“Just for that, you’re done.C’mon Jon; your turn,” Ron said, patting the seat of the couch
in front
of him as he gently shooed me away. “Go
on, git,” he said.

“All right already!” I smirked. I rolled
over on the rug and out of Jon’s
way. He sat cross-legged on the floor in
front of Ron. I loved the way it
stretched out those teardrop shaped muscles in his thighs.I lay back on the floor with my hands behind
my head, waiting until he was comfortable before I rested my feet in
his
lap. Jon moaned and slumped under Ron’s
thumbs.

“Do I get a shot at this?” Hunter asked, watching Jon’s
obvious enjoyment.

“Right after this,” Ron said. Jon looked
up at me from under his
brows. I winked back at him; he knew I’d
been right.

I couldn’t stop myself from raising a foot, wiggling my big
toe in his nose.

“How ‘bout a footrub, babe?” I asked, grinning.

“Oh, man! Get your
skanky hoof outta my face!” he fumed, pulling it back down into his lap.

“So, Jon,” Hunter began again, “You didn’t finish the
story.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jon mumbled.He was enjoying his backrub. His
speech was slowing down a little. “Well,
as I was going to say before Mr. Comedy Central here decided to make an
appearance,” he said, jerking his thumb in my direction.“He goes on these little…’trips’ now and
then.”

I lay back, closed my eyes and listened.

“Trips? Like what?”
Hunter asked.

“It’s kinda like he just zones out, you know? I
never really noticed it much when it was
happening ‘cause we’ve usually been asleep.This is the first time I can remember it happening while we’re
wide
awake. Scared the shit outta me, though;
I’ll tell you that.”

“You should’ve been there,” I snorted.

“So what happens, man?Where do you go?” Hunter was all
ears.

“Well,” I drawled, beginning slowly. I
gave Hunter the brief version of my
‘travels’; the robes, the same but different house, the cars, the rocky
plateau, my guides. For the moment, I
thought it best to leave out the particulars of my talk with
Grandfather. I didn’t want to spook
everyone too much. I did, however, in a
broad way, tell them
that it was because of that last visit that I’d torn up the Ouija board
when
I’d come to. I apologized again for
acting like a complete idiot.

“Girls, girls!” Hunter chided. We couldn’t
help but laugh at our own
foolishness. “What ‘boyfriend’?” he asked.

“AH! There’s the
thing,” I said. “He’s probably the
reason people think this place’s haunted.”I told Hunter about the man in my dreams. Note
that I said ‘in’. The man ‘of’ had finally
consented to working
his thumbs into the soles of my aching feet.If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it.

But, anyway; I told him about the man and the study in the
living room and that book that kept cropping up, about his pleas for
help,
about the constant rain storms; like tonight.I could almost see Hunter shudder as he glanced out the French
doors to
the steadily increasing rain beyond. It
had to be a guy thing, that part of us that loves to be scared.I mean, how many times when you were a kid
did you go to see some horror movie and dive for that sticky,
chewing-gum
infested floor when some shit started happening? You’d
have to see the movie twice just to see
what you missed and then you’d dive for that floor again.Although we might not be able to verbalize
it, exactly, guys innately understand the logic; women have no
appreciation for
it whatsoever. Thank God for Netflix,
huh, or you’d never be able to see a horror movie all the way through.I kind of lost my taste for them but not
Jon. He was like a little kid whenever a
horror movie was on.

“So, you think he’s this Corbin guy?” Hunter asked,
referring to the name, if that’s what it was, that had come through
when Ron
and Jon were screwing around with the Ouija board.

“I have no idea,” I said.“Not sure I wanna know, either.”

“Yeah, there’s been some definite weirdness going on around
here; that’s for sure,” Jon agreed. He
added his own part about the strange phone calls.

Jon grumbled a little more and slid down by me, snagging the
remote control and resting his head on my stomach so he could see the
screen.

Hunter slid into Jon’s position.

Ron pulled at the shoulders of Hunter’s blue tee. “You’ll
like it better if you take your shirt
off.”

“You first,” Hunter said, arching his neck back, letting his
black hair fall into Ron’s lap as he smiled up at him.

I draped my arm over Jon and gently pulled his head toward
the TV. I didn’t want us to seem like
voyeurs. It was hard not to notice,
though. Hunter was obviously enjoying
pushing his game just a little harder.

Ron’s brown eyes stared down into Hunter’s glassy green
ones. It was funny; funny-odd I
mean. It was like watching prey being
mesmerized by a cobra’s steady stare.Ron’s attention didn’t waver an inch for the few long seconds
that
Hunter stared at him, even as he peeled off his own tee shirt and
dropped it
into Hunter’s lap.

“Cool,” Hunter whispered, admiring Ron’s build again,
finally breaking their eye contact to peel off his own tee, revealing
his
smooth developed torso again. He tossed
it lightly over his shoulder into Ron’s lap.Ron pulled it, and Hunter, closer to him and he dug his fingers
into
Hunter’s shoulders and neck.

“You feel pretty tight,” Ron said as he slowly worked his
hands over the expanse of Hunter’s shoulders.

“Oh, yeah,” Hunter muttered.He began his own slow massage of Ron’s legs on either side of
him. As guarded as he could be, I expected
Ron to
pull his legs away or something. But he
didn’t. In fact, he extended them out a
little further. Hunter began to slowly
work his thumbs up and down Ron’s exposed calves. They
both sighed at their mutual attentions.

“Dude,” Jon whispered to me, “This is…”

“Shh,” I cut him off.“Play with your remote.”

Jon turned down the volume and occupied himself flipping
around the channels. He stumbled past
something just as Ron looked up.

“Ooo!” he grunted.“Go back, go back!”

“What?”

“Go back,” he said.“Wait! There! That’s
it!”

“Oh, leave it to you to find a horror movie,” I said.

“OH! I know this
one!” Ron chirped. “This is the one
where the monster comes back to life every twenty-three years or
something,
right?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Jon said, pushing himself to sit up, “and
he kills anyone who has body parts he needs!”

“Sounds about right,” he said, then addressing Jon and Ron,
“What’re you guys, like thirteen years old?”

“If I brush this one’s hair just right, he almost passes for
eighteen. Comes in handy at motels,” I
said, tickling at Jon’s ear. He shooshed
me and swatted my finger away like a fly at a picnic.

“Stop it. You should
like this movie, anyway; it’s got a psychic in it.”

“Oh, hey, great,” I said flatly.

“Shh,” Ron said, “This is the good part!”

Hunter rolled his eyes and crossed his arms as we watched
some half-bat, half-human, half-I-don’t-know-what start tearing up a
police
station.

Jon had this way of just disappearing into a movie.Everything else just ceased to exist for him
when he got that way and I wanted to have some fun.I lifted my finger to my lips, telling Hunter
to be quiet for a second and watch.After I figured Jon was engrossed enough in the movie, I tapped
him on
the shoulder again.

“Hooooney? Hunter and
I are going upstairs for a quick blowjob.We’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” I said softly.

“Yeah, okay,” he droned before the lights finally snapped
on. “HEY!”

Hunter and I shook as we laughed. Realizing
he’d been had, Jon turned and
enveloped me with his arms, straddling me as he pinned me to the floor
again.

“You are so fucking gullible!” I laughed. I
tried to wipe the tears from my eyes but
Jon held my wrists tight.

“You’re just a regular comedian tonight, huh?” he grumbled
but started to laugh at his own overreaction.

“Hunter liked it,” I said, pointing to the man gasping for
air as he pushed himself up from the floor.

“SHHH!” Ron said again, stronger this time, annoyed.

“Oh, will you forget about the movie,” I said. “This
is funny stuff here!”

“I’m not talking about the movie,” he said, looking around
the room with a puzzled expression.“It’s that sound.”

“What sound?” Hunter asked.

Jon hit the mute button on the sound system and we quieted
down, listening for whatever it was that Ron was hearing.

“All I hear’s the rain,” Jon said.

“No,” Ron said, “It’s that other sound.”

I was starting to get annoyed by this. “What
other…”And then I heard it. Kind of far
away, a clicking sound. No, not
clicking; more like a tapping, but odd.

“Yeah, I think I hear it, too,” Hunter said. “Sounds
like you’ve got a woodpecker or
something on your roof.”

“At night? In the
middle of the pouring-down rain?” I asked.“That ain’t no woodpecker.”

“Huh,” said Jon, “Never heard the house make that sound
before.” Jon turned the TV off and
pushed himself to his feet. We followed
suit, remaining quiet, turning our heads back and forth to get a
bearing on the
sound.

“Got kind of a rhythm to it, doesn’t it?” Ron said.

“Sounds like it’s coming from the front,” Hunter said,
pointing.

Jon started walking in that direction, like a hound on the
scent, with the three of us in his wake.We crept through the dining room.The sound was getting more distinct.Ron bumped his hip on the sideboard and rattled the china.We all turned around and shooshed him.

“Quiet!” Jon whispered, turning his head to get his bearing
back.

The tapping echoed from every wall of the entry. It
was louder, but the echoes made it
difficult to find the source.

“It’s coming from upstairs,” Jon whispered.

Hunter stopped. He
looked confused as he listened. “You
know, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was Morse code.”

“Morse code? Here?”
Ron said. He listened for a second
longer. “Huh. You’re
right.It does kinda sound like Morse.You got a radio or something on somewhere?” he asked.

“No radio’s upstairs,” I said. “Leastways
none I know about.”

“Doesn’t make any sense, then,” Hunter said.

“Would it make sense if I told you that the guy who built
the house was had his own telegraph upstairs?”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me!” Hunter said in complete
disbelief. “Who has their own
telegraph?”

“Apparently, this guy did,” I said.

“Yeah, beaucoup bucks,” Jon agreed.

“Oh, this I gotta see,” he said, prodding Jon along.

“I’m beginning to like the woodpecker theory better now that
I think about it,” Ron said. It was
obvious that he was getting nervous again, like when I had the run-in
with the
ghost in the bathroom.

I knew that Hunter was going to make a wiseass comment about
the pecking of wood, but I stopped him, “Save it,” I whispered.“Let’s go,” I told Jon. He
started leading us up the stairs.

It’s kind of funny.In a situation like that, we were four guys acting as a group,
each of
us bolstering the courage of the other, following that incessant
tapping sound
just because our buddies were and we couldn’t let them down or look bad
in
their eyes. Individually, I’m pretty
sure each one of us wanted to cut and run, find a nice, safe bed to
hide under;
assuming you could find one around this place.Maybe not Hunter, I think he was genuinely fascinated by this.This was just what he’d come here to find and
he didn’t seem too unsettled. I can only
think that he must’ve seen enough while in the service that nothing
fazed him
too much. Time would tell.

When we got to the top of the stairs, the direction was
unmistakable. The sound was coming from
down the far end of the hall. I really
hadn’t explored down that way much, didn’t need to, really, since it
was on the
opposite side of the stairs from our bedrooms.I just figured it was more bedrooms.

Jon stopped on the landing and stared down the hall.His eyes were a little wider than
normal. “Well?” I asked.

“Well what?” It
dawned on him what I meant and a smirk flashed across his face.He wanted to be anywhere else but here right
now.

The tapping was clear and distinct now. It
had that fast, distinctive electric
clicking that you usually associate with a telegraph key, ‘dah-dah-dah,
dah-dah, dit, dah, dah-dah-dah, dah-dah, dit,’.I couldn’t make it all out. It
definitely felt like it was repeating some
short phrase and my stomach was starting to knot up again.Grandfather was trying to tell me something.

Jon stalled “Hey, Hunter; if you were in the Navy, can you
make any of that out?” he asked, “If it is Morse, I mean.”

“Man, you’re asking the wrong sailor,” he said. “I
was Emergency Services, not
Communications. I know ‘SOS’ and that’s
it.”

“C’mon,” I said.“This shit’s gotta stop right now.”I squeezed past Jon and took the lead.Ringing phones, telegraphs, whatever; I can’t stand noisy crap
like that
and this nonstop noise was just plain driving me nuts.I slapped at the light switch as I started
down the hall.

I think they were all a little stunned at my sudden
brusqueness. That didn’t stop them from
following me as I marched down the hall, though. I
stopped in front of the door at the end,
looking at it up and down as the tapping just kept repeating and
repeating,
over and over and over.

“Any idea what’s in here?” I asked Jon.

He shrugged, “It’s nothing now; it’s where the telegraph
thing used to be. My uncle was going to
make it into an office.”

I reached for the door knob and felt Ron’s hand on my bicep.“Wait,” he said, “You sure this is a good
idea?”

“No,” I said, staring him dead in the eyes. I
don’t think he quite fully appreciated how
sick I was of intrusions like this.

“Do it, man!” Hunter urged.“Let’s have a look!”

“Dude,” Jon said, “You really think…”

Too late. I was tired
of waiting. I ignored Jon and grabbed
the ornate brass knob, turning it and pushing in one, swift motion.I stumbled through the opening, almost
recoiling at the staleness of the air. I
don’t think anyone had been in here in a long time. Dust
went straight for my nose. It wasn’t until
I stopped sneezing that I
noticed the sound had also stopped. I
felt around inside the doorway for anything that might be a light
switch. There was an odd key-like deal.I turned it until it clicked on a bare bulb
that was just enough to allow us to see.I looked at the burning filaments in the bulb and wondered if
Thomas
Edison might’ve personally autographed the thing. I
mean, we’re talking old.

Jon, Ron and Hunter followed in after me; Not right away, of
course. They hovered in the doorway for
a second, peering around the room for any sign of whatever had made the
sound. There was nothing except for an
old desk against a windowless wall with some sort of old electrical box
above
it. Empty shelves stood on one
side. No telegraph key, no nothing.The place looked more like somebody’s attic
than an office.

“Nothing,” Hunter muttered.He sounded disappointed as he pushed through into the room.

“Yeah, show’s over, I guess,” Ron said. He
sounded relieved.

“Well, something made that sou…,” I started to say before I
was interrupted by the other, new sound.I could almost see the hair literally rising on Ron’s head as it
jerked
back around the way we’d come. We
listened to the sound of metal squealing against metal, of hinges
slowly turning.

Jon was not happy about this new twist, but he seemed more
concerned than scared. Hunter was all
energy, “Oh, c’mon, man! This is getting
good!” he said, slapping me on my abs.

On tiptoes, we crept back down the hall as quietly as fours
guys can creep. In reality, the thought
occurred to me that it could be a
burglar or something. I mean, you never
know, and you might not want to announce your presence too quickly.We winced at every creaking of the floorboards
like we were trying to sneak in late and not wake up our parents.We got to the stairs and peeked over the
railing down into the main hall.

The front door was slowly winding through its arc, hinges
squeaking every inch of the way.

“Didn’t you lock that door?” Jon whispered. I
nodded in reply.

“Probably just the wind,” Ron tried to reassure us, well,
not so much us as himself.

“The wind doesn’t have a key, dude,” Jon deadpanned.

The door swung flat against the sidelights, its bumper
knocking lazily against the wood base as the breeze swirled around it,
making
it sway a little. The breeze filled the
entry. It was cooler than I thought it
should be and we all shivered. I saw the
goosebumps on everybody’s bare arms and chests.From fear or the sudden chill, I couldn’t be sure.A bit of both on my part.

“We just gonna stare at it, or what?” I said. I
moved around to start down the stairs. Enough
was enough for one night. The breeze
became more of a wind and got
colder and I got one of those involuntary shudders.I wrapped my arms over my chest but it was
meager protection. I was halfway to the
door, when, suddenly, it slammed shut.Of its own accord. As if thrown
by something with tremendous strength.We all jumped from the crash of wood against wood.

The entry fell silent except for the sound of my pounding
heart. Except for that odd sound that
filled my head. That sound that seemed
to come from nowhere and everywhere. It
was a sigh of satisfaction, like when you have that first sip of coffee
in the
morning or when the warm water first hits you in the shower.
But this one felt like it said ‘home’.
I knew none of the others had heard it.